By Sarah Liu, YAIC Weekly
February 11,
2013
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| www.eslite.com |
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| www.pagesandpages.com.au |
"Can long distance romance
work?" "I fell in love with my best friend. Should I tell her my
feeling?" "Does my Mr. Right really exist?" "How could best
collectively slack off, form a cartel and drag the examination marking standard
down?" "How to crush the student cartel?" "Should I go to a
university or get a real job?" "Which career should I choose?"
"I don't have enough time!" "Should I study harder in order to
get a better grade?" "Should I rely on the rankings?" "My
socks don't match. What can I do?" "I use the same password on the
Internet and I'm worrying that the hackers might find out!"
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| www.positivemoney.org |
These questions were asked by the
readers of the dear economist column and undercover economist column on Financial
Times . The economist, Tim Harvord would answered the questions calmly
without hesitating and frankly with his forthright language. He loves to employ
economic models, quote statistical data and sometimes just reason them through
logic. These all make his advice reliable and full of his personal charm. This
book is consists of 150 problems, giving us the most realistic and entertaining
economics that in the same time we can also learn so much from.
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| timharvord.com |
"Can long distance romance
work?" My friend asked me this question before. Unfortunately, at that
time, I couldn't give her any useful advice. And now, before I can share Tim's
advice with her, their relationship had already ended, proving that distance
romance can't work. However, to those who hope to maintain a distance romance,
they will like to know that the Alchain-Allen Theorem says that the Australians
drink more high-level Californian wine than the Californians and it's because
only expensive wine worth spending this transportation cost.
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| johnwentparkland.blogspot.com |
"How could best collectively slack
off, form a cartel(the behavior of collusion) and drag the examination marking
standard down?" The question was asked by a student from
"Cantorbridge College," who was learning economics and, like all of
the students, wanted to study less but still get good grade. Tim, instead of
rebuking him with moral standard like most of the teachers or elders, he gave
him advice like these: give out cheap beers, take others' notes and bully the
hard-working students. They might sound frightening, but viewing them as an
utterly rational economist, these advice totally make sense.
An economics professor saw the former
article on the newspaper and thought that the letter must had come from his
student. He then asked Tim if he had a plan to crush his students' cartel.
Though Tim gave the professor some useful solutions, he ended this article with
a really harsh comment: If you, an economics teacher can't use your intelligence
to crush your students' cartel, then your students can't learn from you anyway.
Wow, this economist is really out of the ordinary!
The most fun part of reading this book
is the various questions asked by all kinds of people. You can find yourselves having
problems resembling to theirs and will learn the practical solutions. As for
me, I'm going to get rid of all my single socks and buy dozens of identical
pairs. Hope you'll get your answers here and make good choices in your
lifetime.
Reference:
Dear Undercover Economist written by Tim Harford
Dear Undercover Economist written by Tim Harford
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